


amnesty

by pilynator



Category: Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Abuse, Child Abuse, Dissociation, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Drug Use, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Manipulation, Gen, Implied/Referenced Depression, Intrusive Thoughts, Mental Health Issues, Saeran is in therapy, Self-Harm, V and Saeyoung are safe, V is in the hospital, is all i'm saying, rika is here to put the fear of god in you part 2, tenderize the heart muscle, vvvv brief mention of saeran/mc, you can't make schnitzel without hammering down some fillets, you gotta put the hurt in hurt/comfort, you know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-11
Updated: 2018-06-11
Packaged: 2019-05-20 18:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14900108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pilynator/pseuds/pilynator
Summary: If trying to adjust himself to V had left Saeran feeling like he was trying to coax a wild sea creature out of its shell, learning how tobearound Saeyoung was like trying to make something grow from salted earth. Harder and more frustrating, but also familiar.On motherhood, forgiveness, and all the spaces in-between.For Saeran Week 2018Day 6: Afterend ||Forgiveness





	amnesty

**Author's Note:**

> Mmmm.
> 
> Hm.
> 
> This fic eh? I think Saeran would have a lot of mixed feelings about his mother still, particularly fears, and there's parts of their flashbacks that make me think she was a bit more complicated than just generic abusive mum, even if she was a heinous piece of work in the end. I toy a bit with that idea in here, but the bulk of it is V & Saeyoung + Rika as a bridge.
> 
> Warnings are there for a reason.
> 
> Enjoy!

He’d been at his most hollow in those days immediately after the first cleansing. There was the burning afterglow of a memory prickling in the back of his head, like a ridged edge where something had been torn away from him and stuffed back in sideways, but for the most part, Ray had felt listless and disoriented and more than a little nauseous. They had offered him water and food, his hard-earned rewards for good behaviour, and he had scoffed those down before the Believers got the chance to change their mind. He’d felt better immediately afterwards, but the nausea had kept him nailed to the bed in a haze. Believers would show up from time to time to feed him the elixir and that was that. For the most part, he was left alone to lick his wounds. There was a small kindness in that, he’d thought, a brief respite from endlessly coming up short against something. It felt good to be unseen, to curl up in a ball and become nothing.

Time in the healing wards flowed slowly and you were mostly alone with your thoughts. Ri…The Saviour. The Saviour. The Saviour. The words caught in his breath as he struggled to get them out in case she’d heard his mental misstep. The Saviour, of course it’s the Saviour, the Saviour had said healing was done in solitude so that you could reflect on your wrongdoings. Ray ( _another snag, his thoughts caught on something inside his head; there’s a scraping feeling every time he tries to get the name to fit his bones_ ) spent a couple of hours trying to do that and found, to his horror, that he could only find fear where wrongdoings should have been. Not for the first time in his life, he felt misshapen, like everyone else around him had been given something he’d missed out on at birth. He tried his best to _look_ like he had found something terribly wrong inside himself, and when the Saviour finally visited him, a couple of days after the cleansing, Ray had kept still in fear that she would see the sins rattling inside his skull if he’d move around too much.

It had been a brief visit. She was only there to congratulate him on successfully completing his initiation into Mint Eye, decked in her full Saviour regalia to make it official. Her hand had brushed gently against his forehead, leaving icy pinpricks in its wake. She had graced him with a smile though, and Ray had carried that with him inside heart like a small lantern to light his way around the recovery process. Whatever happened, his Saviour had thought him worth a smile. He felt elated for days afterwards, left to complete his recovery in the dimness of his holding room. There were no windows in the Magenta hospital because healing was also done in the dark. That was what the Saviour had said the first time he had asked about it and he supposed there was some wisdom in that. The worst punishments of his childhood had been done in the daylight, under the watchful eye of the sun. Darkness had meant his mother would be sleeping, most of the times at least, and that was he and…

He cuts the thought off abruptly and digs his nails deep into his arm underneath the covers, leaves angry crisscrossing marks across his skin. The traitor did not deserve his memories. None of them did.

So Saeran waits, sleeps, lets his thoughts drift. Sometimes he is not there at all, pretends he is another he. He wears this other skin like an ill-fitting suit. Like a child putting on their parents’ clothes, he plays at being someone who is strong and capable and loved and wanted. He remembers reading about something like this, at least, about children who were allowed to touch things and move about the house and how their parents would sigh and shake their heads, but secretly smile at their antics. It had been an old book, with the pages yellowed and dog eared, but Saeran had treasured it. Because it had shown him a world he only dared to dream about and because it had been a gift from Sae…

 **No**.

The scratches feel inadequate this time around, less comforting no matter how hard he tries to break skin. It must be because he’d been biting his nails, this disgusting new habit he’d acquired.

He’d treasured that book for a couple of weeks, at least until his mother had found it stuffed between the couch and the wall. She’d hit him with it and then ripped it up in front of him. It had been one of the few times when he’d felt something mean and sharp stir inside of him. Not hate, he had always been the weak one, but a small sliver of resentment at the fact that she hadn’t even left him the privacy of his fantasies for himself. Now, in the slightly damp solitude of the Magenta hospital, Saeran tries to wrap himself around that whiff of malice like mother of pearl around sand.

He drinks the elixir when they bring it to him, says his ‘please’ and ‘thank you’s while it digs a riverbed of pain down his throat. Saeran doesn't know what it’s burning away, but he hopes it’s his past.

* * *

The memory of her weighs down his bones. He’s known this for a while, had felt himself leaden even as his mirror showed the sharp angles in his face. Saeran is bird-light, marrowless, feels like he might snap in a breeze, but something in him weighs him down like you would with a corpse in an ocean.

It’s not just his brother he sees in the mirror.

* * *

 He is combing his Saviour’s hair and can’t remember how he got there. The bitter aftertaste in the back of his throat means that he has been keeping up with his dosage at least, which would explain the serene expression on her face. His Saviour is pleased with him today, she must be. He can’t remember the previous _half hour? hour?_ but it doesn’t look like she’s waiting for any response on his part, so there must not have been any issues she’d wished to discuss. It’s a small habit of theirs, using this time to talk through anything Ray should be working on to better himself. Things like: his meek disposition, his results with infiltrating the company servers of new recruitment candidates, his small voice. It’s an extensive list, but they have been cutting it shorter together.

So. So! He must be here to keep her company. Ray smiles a little at his little deduction process and the Saviour’s eyes swirl up to him as if on cue. Her eyes are green as well, a brilliant furnace nestled between her otherwise delicate features. She smiles back, lazily, happily, and Ray suddenly feels uneasy. There’s a burning itch in his skin that tells him to be on guard, to try even harder to live up to her requests now, whatever they might be, and to keep that smile going. The smile means he’s doing well.

‘Something amusing, Ray?’ Her voice and the staggered rasp of the brush are the only things breaking the silence of the room, but he is sure that his heart is now louder than both. His hands crawl their way through the cascade of gold and he grip the brush handle to keep himself from pulling on any hair.

‘My Saviour?’

‘You were smiling so softly. I’ve shared your sorrows, I was hoping you’d show me your happiness as well,’ she says and there’s a playful note to her voice that makes his shoulders sag in relief. ‘You’ve been doing so much better, Ray. All the Believers are commenting on your growth. I’m proud of the work you’re doing here, for everyone.’ And then, gently, demurely, as she plays with the edge of a bookmark on her vanity, ‘For me.’

He tries to hold her gaze but, again, there is something that makes him more nervous than happy about all the praise. A growing terror at the idea that he did not deserve all her benefaction. There’s a strange paradox in his Saviour. The more he receives of her approval, the more erratic and fearful he becomes, but the sadness she shows him whenever she has to discipline him leaves him empty, a half-starved maw aching for a glimpse of that green fire.

As if on cue, she raises a conspiratorial finger to her lips. ‘You mustn’t tell the other I’ve let you in on this secret, but they’re quite –’ a small, poignant pause ‘– jealous of you.’ She leans back in her seat and twists her neck around to see him better. ‘You are one of my favourites for a reason, you know,’ and the way she says that, languidly with just the tiniest hint of teasing, makes his blood run hot and cold all at once. He’s torn between pride and a neurotic need to hunt down whoever else has made that list and…and do something to them. Something bad. _Something very bad_ , he thinks hotly and there’s a faint buzzing in his ears at that, like an old memory is brushing against his thoughts.

The Saviour’s lips curl up in even more delight at taking him into her confidence. The Saviour does that a lot, delight in the small secrets they share. It makes Ray feel included and appreciated, even when those secrets are things like his hacking progress, or his elixir high, when he’s giddy and talkative and can’t stop himself from telling her all about the things he’s witnessed around Magenta. He tries no to think too hard about the other secrets and the basement, where those first secrets are snuffed out.

He keeps the repetitive brushing motions going, suddenly wishing this would be over soon. He loves his Saviour, loves all that she has done for him, but sometimes these meetings drain the life out of him, lead him through so many emotional highs and lows that he’s left disoriented and empty long after he’s left her room. Fear and paranoia and the dull hunger for approval in his bones are making him notice more details in the room.

There’s hints that his Saviour is not doing as well as she appears to be. The bed is messy, meaning she has been spending a lot more time in there than doing her daily rounds around the gardens. There’s a thin layer of dust on some of her books – she hasn’t let the maids in or worked on her personal projects. It worries him. Ray wonders if he should tell her anything, if she’d appreciate his attention to detail and his interest in her well-being or if she’d hate to be cracked open and have her secrets displayed like that.

His attention keeps drifting around the room, picking up on even more things. Her mouth is very pretty shade of pink today. Ray knows for a fact that the lipstick was a gift from a prospective Believer, some investment banker or the other. He’d never responded to his party invitations but had kept an interest in her long after the initial conversation had cooled off. He’d passed through Magenta en route to a meeting and dropped off a discrete looking bag with a small hoard of fine looking items, including jewellery and chocolate, and the Saviour had _smiled_. There were a lot of similar trinkets strewn about the Saviour’s chambers, gifts ( _or offerings_ and something young and fearful inside him flinches away from that thought) that she liked to display. Sometimes she’d walk him through it, smile in tow, showing off her collection.

( _Once, Ray had seen a cat bringing in dead birds at the kitchen entrance and the sight of it had distraught him enough that he’d hunted down the Believer responsible for the animal and demanded an explanation._

_‘She likes me,’ he had responded, a tad irritated, ‘now let me finish my work. Close the door to the kitchens if it bothers you that much.’_

_Ray had never found it easy to pray, his traitorous scum of a brother had been the religious one, but how he had prayed that night that that man was liked, that the empty shell of another could be a mark of affection_.)

The brush snags on a knot and both her hands shoot up to stifle a sharp inhale of pain. Ray’s mind goes blank and for a couple of seconds they can only stare at each other through the mirror, her eyes wide and hurt and his own looking wild. He hates how disgusting he looks and how he doesn’t look sorry at all, just scared and ready to run, hates how he’s still standing when he had betrayed her trust like this, when all his Saviour had asked of him was to spend a quiet moment with her and brush her hair while reflecting on his mistakes. The wave of self-hatred is so strong it almost hurts him to breathe and Ray aches to find some release from that _but the scratching hasn’t been enough recently and the Saviour is staring him down he needs to wait needs to wait needs to wait needs to wait needs to wait not_ now **set someone up for a cleansing**

Ray sluggishly blinks himself away from that train of thought and finds another strange thought somewhere deep inside, in a place that he can only access through that mirror, by looking at himself through his eyes that aren’t his own. A small and traitorous part of him that Ray thought he had strangled a long time ago is saying _you’ve been getting so much better you almost ripped her whole head off the first time you are better you’re better she has to see this she has to know why would she be mad you try. so. hard._

The Saviour looks off too. She’s been very quiet and by this point she’d have normally said something. She’s frowning at something without really seeing him, so Ray has time to throw himself on the floor in despair.

‘I’m…I’m so sorry Saviour. I’ve hurt you, I’m…Your beautiful hair….’ there are tears welling up in his eyes and Ray tries to blink them away. A memory of the Saviour telling him to hide those parts of himself and be stronger flashes furiously in an out of his consciousness, but it’s blurry and he feels oddly distanced from it. Like it’s not his own, and he’s merely spectating someone else’s life. ‘Please forgive me, Saviour, I’ll make it up to you.’

That seems to get her attention. Barely. Her eyes still have that glassy look to them that makes the hairs on Ray’s neck stand up.

‘Ray…’ she's tentative, but talking seems to make her feel better. She turns her gaze to him and it’s a little more secure now. ‘Ray come closer,’ she makes a beckoning motion with her hand and he follows the movement with trepidation, crawling over to her side. Once there, his Saviour threads her fingers in his hair, making small soothing gestures. It doesn’t help with his mental state in the least, even if his scalp tingles slightly in appreciation. A couple of moments pass like this, with neither of them saying anything. Ray even allows himself the folly of hope once again, quietly praying that this means she’d forgotten all about it, when she finally speaks.

‘I was a sad child too, you know.’

Ray blinks. This is unexpected. His Saviour carries on talking and the fact that he can’t see her face from his position on the ground is worrying him. She’s been acting strange and, his horrible mistake aside, this hasn’t been going the way it’s supposed to go. Normally the Saviour would grace him with forgiveness or give him a small, but complex, task to complete as penance. This was…out of character.

‘Yes, I was sad and willful and disobedient and…I think it made my mother very sad. She didn’t have a lot of love for me, but she had sadness to spare. Did you love your mother, Ray?’ Her voice is sharp, flirting with the edge of something scary, but never really touching it. He’s not quite sure what to do with that loaded gun she’s just handed him. The question rattles in his rib cage like a wild animal, angry and sharp.

‘I don’t think of her much. You are the mother I’ve always wished for, Saviour,’ he says in the end, opting for a neutral answer. She laughs at this, a genuinely amused laugh that fills the room.

‘Ah, Ray, you are quite the devious schemer. Hiding your thoughts from your Saviour with flattery.’

Ray furrows his brows in confusion. It wasn’t a lie, he doesn’t think. The Saviour had a way of figuring out where the darkest parts of people were hiding even if they were not aware of it, but this had been as honest as he could allow himself to be.

‘Let’s reflect on this, then, hm? A little exercise for us to go through. Do you think your mother loved you?’

 _This_ question feels like a slap in the face and he’s trying hard not to cry again in the face of this renewed onslaught on his sense of reality. Old wounds throb painfully on his body and his throat feels constricted. If he closes his eyes, he can almost feel the hand grip.

‘No.’

There’s a small displeased huff of air at this answer, but Ray is almost desperate for some normal punishment by this point. He’s not quite willing to face a cleansing, but anything short of that would feel like a treat.

‘Sometimes, Ray,’ and her hand pulls at his hair at this, sends a minuscule jolt through his nerve endings and awareness, ‘love looks strange to us. I think love is seeing yourself through another person, seeing all that you could ever be, with no boundaries in sight.’ Another pull, and he can hear the smile in her voice when she speaks next. ‘Love is eternal like the sun and reflective like the moon. My mother didn’t love me, but I think she saw herself in me and it scared her. She saw the mirror but didn’t have the courage to let those parts she didn’t like in herself be. Do you understand what I’m saying?’

Ray remember his mother like a flurry of pain or not at all. She’s a blurry mass of limbs and smoke that hurt him whenever he tried to get close. There had been a time when he had imagined her like a puzzle, that maybe she was a secret he could get, that if he found the right combination she’d unfold like one of those origami flowers Saeyou **traitortraitortraitortraitortraitor** the Traitor would make out of church pamphlets. Ray remembers his mother like a sickness, a persistent fever, a pestilence, something formless that takes control of your body and drains the colour from the world and keeps your mind cloudy. But…

But. His eyes dart treacherously to the mirror on the Saviour’s vanity. But. She had been erratic and jittery and wild and had hurt herself as much as she had hurt….Ray? ( _A snag again, a sense of wrongness, like trying to wear someone else’s skin_ ). This isn’t a thought, but a muscle memory, the feeling of certain pull to poke at exposed flesh to see how it would feel, and he can see it in his own bony profile or maybe in the frantic typing of that stupid redhead when he talks about dying **good** only to be ignored. His Saviour is wise and strong and beautiful so maybe she’s seen the same.

‘I’m…I’m not sure Saviour.’

Her hand is back to drawing calming circles on his scalp.

‘I can tell by your voice that you’ve given it a think, at least. Well done, Ray. You’ve always been a fast learner.’

In the wake of her lesson, the praise feels empty. Ray idly wonders if she’s not simply going through the motions before he reels back from the gravity of his accusation. His Saviour cares for him. She must.

‘When you don’t know what love looks like, Ray, it’s easy to mistake it for harm. I loved V and he ran away from me, could not take what I had to show him. But you’re not like that, are you Ray? You won’t hurt me like my family and V and the RFA by pulling away from me when I need you the most?’

He is sure of this, at least.

‘Never, Saviour! I would never. Only horrible people would hurt you.’

His Saviour’s smile could melt rocks, he is sure of it. It burns through his fears, bright and magnificent and smouldering and _right in front of his face_. Ray blinks, adjusting to this change of perspective. She had climbed down from her perch on the chair and was now leaning over, brushing away strands of hair from his face.

‘Sweet, sweet Ray, so kind and loving. Thank you for trusting me. You were so rattled from making a simple mistake and I’m worried. Will you let me soothe your worries?’

‘Yes,’ he says, and even to his own ears he sounds a bit too mechanical. He knows what comes next.

‘And to heal, you must have your space. Go to the server room, Ray –‘ she’s pushing a medium sized elixir bottle in his hands and _smiling so sweetly_ , ‘– and take your dose. Think about what we’ve talked about. Healing is done in the dark and you need time to process this, I understand that, so I’ll be over to discuss this with you later. And Ray?’ She brings her index finger up to her mouth again, eyes crinkling as she does so. ‘Take your dose. I’ll know if you don’t.’

That’s enough to make him paranoid for a month at a minimum, wondering how much she knows about his tendency to skip a decoupling session here and there. He tries his best to maintain eye contact, but her self-assured smile tells him all that he needs to know about his success, or lack thereof.

‘Yes, Saviour.’

‘One day you’ll understand,’ she says and, again, Ray sees something not fully there in her expression. She’s talking to him but also not, like she’s having a conversation with someone else in her past. It’s unnerving and he can’t shake the feeling he’s seeing something of Rika behind the veil. When she’s the Saviour, she is impassable and regal, a figure cloaked in velvet who wears her authority softly, like the promise of violence and not the fist. This flash of strangeness feels like he’s looking inside a clam; there’s something fleshy and vulnerable about her now. ‘You must. You have to know that strength comes from pain, Ray, and healing is done in the dark. You know that, right?’

Her face is pleading. He doesn’t know what to say, so he just nods slowly. The way her face lights up at that makes a cosy warmth nest in his solar plexus. She looks happy, blissful even, and coos prettily as she stands up. Ray feels a cold emptiness settle where she had been and a slight twinge of subdued disappointment in his own chest. He had been hoping for a hug, or another touch, something to make him feel wanted.

‘Excellent. You are one of my favourites for a reason, Ray.’

She doesn’t move from her spot above him, though, and stops to consider her next movement for a long time before she finally leans over awkwardly, her golden tresses brushing against face.

‘You’ll forgive me one day,’ is all she says, her voice soft and broken. There’s a vacuum at the end of those words, a gaping emptiness as if something is missing from the world. It sounds like it should be a request, but it is not. It’s a demand and Ray feels a coldness gripping him by the chest. ‘You’ll understand me, and you’ll forgive me like I forgive you for all your little mistakes. You’ll know my love is the love of the sun, Ray.’

He doesn’t know how to respond to that and the Saviour doesn’t seem to want him too. Just as well. He’s feeling strange and unquiet and afraid of his own head. Whatever spell had held the two of them in place for so long is broken by the loud chiming of the grandfather clock she keeps in a corner and she shoos him out of the room with the promise of a visit.

The elixir bottle hangs heavy in his hands all the way back to the server room. He spills some of it when he opens the cap. An accident **liarliarliar** , of course. He chugs the half-bottle left and smiles and bows and begs for forgiveness from Saviour when she comes to bless him with her light, lets himself believe the half-truth of salvation. From his spot at her feet, kneeling in the long shadow she casts from the glow of his screens, Ray searches her face for something he can recognise, a shred of the mirror-love she promises. He’s not sure of what he finds, but that night he dreams about the basement again.

* * *

‘I’m not sure I can forgive you.’

V flinches at that. He does that a lot, Saeran notices, tries to retreat into his skin like a frightened doe whenever someone talks to him. A couple of weeks ago he would have felt incredibly happy at the thought of causing him distress, and he’s reasonably certain the _correct_ emotion he should be experiencing right now should be…pity? Sadness? Something in that range. But V and all the V shaped memories he still had ( _the untouched ones he could still piece together from old journal entries and dreams and not the Rika-V_ ) had stopped eliciting any emotional response from Saeran. It’s as if the sheer information overload had burned emotional nerve damage into whatever he might have felt about the man before. Saeran looks him over and feels numb, numb and distant. He might as well be looking at a stranger.

‘You shouldn’t,’ V says and of course he says that. Of course. There’s an emotion: exasperation and irritation and the him that isn’t him stirs a little bit ( ** _heleftusheleftusheleftus_** ). Saeran finds himself increasingly exasperated by V’s refusal to talk about anything, even now. He’d not had high expectations from these meetings, there was too much to untangle than could be confined to short hospital visits, but what he _had_ expected hadn’t been a stubborn and continuous insistence on martyrdom.

‘Maybe I want to, have you thought of that?’ Saeran can’t quite keep the bite out of his voice and V flinches again, as startled by sudden sounds as he is by questioning. Questions have been rattling V a lot, especially when they concern Rika. ‘Maybe I want you to talk this through with me and put some effort into explaining yourself and maybe I want to hear what **_went on in your head when_** –‘ his voice starts hitching and cracks uncomfortably on that last syllable before he cuts himself off. Saeran grips the edge of his seat in an attempt to calm down the chatter in his head. Deep breaths. He’s safe, in the hospital, on the chair, safe and in control.

V is eyeing him cautiously from his spot on the bed. _Maybe he hasn’t forgotten the gun_ **good** , Saeran muses, and then tries again. ‘I _want_ to forgive you and to understand, but you’re making this very difficult.’ The next words come out without any direct contribution from his brain, ‘You can’t heal from this by yourself,’ and Saeran is dully surprised to find that the means it, it and the offer to help.

Behind the layers of gauze, in the soft light of the morning sun, V looks strangely pale. Not pale like Saeran had been, a pallor of deprivation, but stretched out and blurred slightly at the outline, like someone had sucked the colour out of him and he was spilling over his edges. His voice never went above a hoarse whisper either, even though the medical report had not mentioned anything about damage to his throat. V simply didn’t look like he wanted to be alive and Saeran’s new thirst for experiences made him testy every time he’d say something self-defeating. Like now.

‘You should hate me,’ V starts. And stops. And starts again, but with an anxious undertone. ‘After everything that I’ve done, I don’t deser –’

‘How about you let me decide what I want to do **for once** ,’ and there’s the bite again, slipping through. At least he kept it verbal these days, more intrusive thoughts and less intrusive urges to violently strangle V. Deeper breaths. ‘I don’t hate you. I don’t _know what to feel_. If possible, though, I’d like not to hate you. I’d like to think that you tried your best.’

Well, that seems to get a reaction. It’s like watching a small tectonic collision making its way across V’s face; slowly, ever so slowly, conflicting thoughts slide against one another and chafe. He opens and closes his mouth several times, no doubt trying to get some other self-loathing comment out there just in case Saeran had forgotten the other five thousand he hears every day, but he doesn’t actually take the leap. When he finally does talk, V is close to tears.

‘I’d like to think so too.’

There’s a blind sort of panic rising quickly through Saeran’s spine. He’s not sure he can take a full on crying V now, it’s too much all at once, too many numb parts of him suddenly lighting up with conflicting information. He jumps up, startles V again, bangs his knee on the bedside table. It’s not a dignified exit, but he feels suffocated by the rush of adrenaline, needs to put as much space between him and the other man to process whatever the hell he’s feeling right now. On his way out, he slows down a little to explain himself to V, who’s looking a shade like a very elegant owl with the way his eyes have widened in shock.

‘I’ll be back then, yes?’

‘Y-yes? Was it something I –’

‘I need to go, sorry.’

It’s later, in the garden, after he’s had some time to calm down, that Saeran remembers why the sight of V in the bandages for his burns had seemed so familiar, that he remembers the old file the Sav…Rika had handed him when he’d first stepped into the server room. All the pages had been worn at the corners and the ink had been smudged with use in the handwritten parts. Someone had poured over this file over and over, looking for something and never seeming to do more than brush slightly against the outline of it. Saeran thinks he can see it now, glimpse at something that she had missed in her mirror-love.

V had his mother’s eyes, her face, her hair, and now he wore her fire too.

When Saeran comes back the next day, he doesn’t ask about his old house or the ashes or the scars, but he does bring a blurry photo of some white tulips he’s found **looked for hours you liar** on the hospital grounds. A blank page.

‘How do I get the image to stop shaking like this? I can take better photos, I just can’t seem to figure out the settings for this one.’

This question, like all the others, makes V jump a little in his bed. He stares back at him for a long time.

‘I was wondering how come you and Jumin get along so well.’

It’s small and shaky and shy, but it’s a start.

* * *

His brother is.

Different.

The wound is deeper. It had cut through his entire being deep enough to cleave him in two, in three, in splintered fragments of himself that endlessly turned on each other. And there’s his fourth self, a slightly messier mirror image currently trying to become one with the wall. After a life time of being trampled on, having people cower away from him is still a jarring sensation.

‘It’s me.’

And from the way Saeyoung **TRAITOR** uncoils slightly, slouches a tad, even chances a faint a smile, Saeran can tell that he understands. The first couple of meetings had been…harsher. He’s pretty sure at least one vase had been thrown at his brother, but the memory is faint and distorted. He hadn’t been himself at the time. Probably. Maybe. It’s hard to tell. Saeran thinks the hot burning shame he feels thinking about it is a good sign, a glimpse of other exciting emotions he might eventually feel about his brother. Last week he’d even overheard and rolled his eyes at a conversation with Yoosung and had then spent hours mulling over the novelty of exasperation, the strange way it fit and didn’t within the bare bones of his rib cage. If trying to adjust himself to V had left Saeran feeling like he was trying to coax a wild sea creature out of its shell, learning how to _be_ around Saeyoung was like trying to make something grow from salted earth. Harder and more frustrating, but also familiar.

It had taken them weeks just to get to a point where they could share the same space without any incidents. Saeran just had to keep reminding himself that this was what he wanted, what he had chosen for himself, that he could leave at any point if he wanted to, over and over and over, until the visit was done and he could find a quiet place to stop his limbs from shaking, try not to throw up from the effort of not hurling abuse into Saeyoung’s stupid **lying nasty _face._**

Deep breaths.

They’d started watching TV shows to pass the time in lieu of anything better to do. It had been MC’s suggestion, something for Saeran’s hunger to experience normality and his brother’s desperate wish to spend time together, and it had been a very elegant solution to filling in the many uncomfortable silences they ended up with. He’d let Saeyoung pick the shows, he wouldn’t even know where to begin, and was pleasantly surprised to find he didn’t hate most of what they ended up with. Being known like this, even after years apart, made his skin itch with something tender. Gratitude, perhaps.

Conversation often alternated between sparse and overflowing. There was a sort of pattern they’d fallen into, starting the week with small talk and working hard at keeping up rapport, and then around the middle of the week Saeran would rush ahead, ask for a clarification or justification, Saeyoung would take his abuse, Saeran would storm out. A lot of tears would be involved. Saeran would take some time off to process things, Saeyoung would worry. Saeran had therapy on Fridays. The weekend was for gardening and MC. Come Monday, he’d be standing in front of Saeyoung’s hospital room again and his brother would stare at him with such an open and unguarded expression Saeran would instantly feel like running again. Today was Wednesday and he was predictably itchy to poke at something painful.

‘I’ve been thinking about mum.’

Next to him, Saeyoung visibly stiffens. Saeran plows forward, determined to bring this stray train of thought to whatever violent crash is in store for it.

‘I’ve been talking a bit about her in therapy. Not…not a lot. Just enough.’ In all honesty, Saeran isn’t even sure how he could begin to explain their mother. Words seem to slip and slide over her memory whenever he tries to go into more detail than _she hurt us_. His brain refused to let him break down what had gone done in that house into digestible pieces and kept forcing him to swallow the damn thing whole, still wriggling in his throat.

Saeyoung shoots him a sympathetic grimace.

‘Well, it’s not exactly a topic rife with small talk material.’

‘Mhm.’

His brother waits for a bit to see if there’s going to be any follow up to this and turns his attention back to the laptop screen when it becomes obvious Saeran is struggling to form his next coherent thought. It goes like this:

‘They said t-there might be a genetic component to it.’

Saeyoung looks at him again, visibly distraught by this turn in conversation, but Saeran can’t stop himself. The words that had come so slowly at first are tumbling out of him now.

‘W-whatever’s wrong, we’re still...working on it. There’s so much wrong with me and I talked about her for a bit, something unrelated, and it got us…going. And there’s a possibility I might’ve had this anyway, isn’t that something? Out of all the things she gave me, I got this as well and, and!’ Saeran is practically hyperventilating by this point. Out of the corner of his eye he spots Saeyoung trying to reach out and thinking better of it. He lets his hand down between the two of them and it’s so close that Saeran could grab it if he wanted to, he _does_ want to, but also not. An angry cat hiss is growing in the back of his mind and he finds himself dangerously close to being in two minds about things yet again.

Saeyoung runs his free hand through his hair.

‘God, Saeran, I’m so, _so_ sorry.’

‘Don’t.’ Telling people to stop being sorry has grown into an automated process at this point, Saeran is confident he could do it in his sleep. ‘That’s…that’s not what this is about.’ The problem with that statement is, of course, that he doesn’t know himself what this is about. He’d wanted to vent, but there was something else bothering him, a shapeless fear that gripped his bones.

‘Well, I am. You can’t bring **that** back up again like that and expect me to have any neutral feelings about it. It’s mostly regret and anger.’

That definitely sounded like the Saeyoung he remembered. After everything, he’s as eager to burn bridges as Saeran is to hurt himself. A dull ache resonates in Saeran’s chest at that.

‘Saeyoung, what _do you_ remember about her? Do you even remember anything?’ That part had sounded accusatory again, even Saeran winced a little at his own tone. ‘I mean, do you even think about her anymore?’

‘Yeah, in my nightmares.’ Both of them snort a little at that. It’s a pleasant feeling, being able to share a morbid joke. ‘I don’t know, Saeran, what do you want me to say? It’s hard not think about her, but I try my hardest anyway.  I don’t even think I remember her face.’

‘She was very tall woman,’ Saeran says, and he’s not sure why. It’s true, though, all his memories are of looking up into a cloud of smoke.

‘We were very _small_ , Saeran.’ His brother’s tone is decisive, like that’s the last he wants to hear about that, and Saeran feels a wave of affection he hadn’t felt in a long time. It feels so good to hear that, to know that someone else understands exactly what he feels. Having validation for thoughts he’d considered too selfish or indulgent to have fills him with such a warm feeling that he’s sure he might burst.

‘I remember her being erratic,’ Saeran starts. The more he keeps going, the easier it is to talk himself through it. ‘I remember the mood changes.’ And here it is, the thought snag that lets him know when he’s close to uncovering something unpleasant. ‘The self-harm.’ The cigarette burns had been something she’d only shared with him, thought him weak enough to be her confidant. And _that_ thought reminds him of something else, another room and another person with the warm light of the sun streaked through her hair. ‘Saeyoung, the more I think about her, the more she reminds me of me.’

‘ **No**.’ His brother’s eyes are drilling holes into skull right now. It had been easy to forget how intense he could get after being separated for so long and only knowing him through the filter of the chatroom. ‘Saeran, listen to me, you are nothing like her. No matter what you got from her or you _think_ you got from her.’ Saeyoung is basically shaking with anger now. ‘You’re _kind_ , Saeran.’

He bursts out laughing at this, but it’s a bit manic. He’s hoping Saeyoung can’t see his tears, for the sake of his own dignity.

‘How could you even say that with a straight face? I’ve hurt so many people. I’ve done so many horrible things. Kind people don’t act as the torture chief in command for cults, Saeyoung.’

Saeyoung frowns at him and almost looks like he wants to poke him in the arm, before abruptly settling for picking at the threads in the sheets.

‘No, you’re right, kind people take cults down.’

And there it is again, validation he didn’t know he was craving, making him feel uncomfortably raw. Saeran is torn between accepting the compliment and running away to hide from the sudden, imposed vulnerability.

‘And for the record?’ Saeyoung has a weird look for a moment, but it passes quickly, like it never had been. Saeran’s heart tugs at the sight. ‘I’ve done horrible things too.’

There’s a long and awkward silence that stretches out painfully between them until Saeran has to break eye contact and let himself breathe again. He doesn’t just feel complicated, he feels fragmented. Every cell in his body is experiencing a different train of thought, all at once. There is, for example, the curling beast of resentment slithering through his ribs, whispering about the chains in the basement and the tiny snow ball of a world he was allowed to inhabit, while Saeyoung had at least had the RFA and some semblance of autonomy. It talks about the elixir, thick and bitter, and the gentle hands that had held his mouth open for it. If he pokes a little bit around this emotion there’s some tender edges, a different type of soreness of the heart.

The previous were old wounds, slashed and healed on top of each other, a crisscrossing network of places where his choices had been extirpated from his body. But he also felt a new kind of pain surge forwards, flowering under his skin. He is, Saeran realises, upset that his brother would even think about comparing hurts. He feels _belittled_. Not taken seriously. In a hazy sort of way, he can feel his therapist’s voice urging him to articulate that.

‘That,’ he starts. Saeran’s throat is dry, harsh words caught in it like debris in a net. He has to mediate for the other Saeran, has to walk on eggshells to preserve the tentative arrangement they’d set up. ‘When you say thing like that you make me feel like you’re trying to come out on top.’ Fuck. Wrong. Stupid. Even now, can’t talk right, can’t talk nice like V or _the Saviour stupidstupidstupidstupidstupid **stupid**_

‘Saeran!’

There’s a frantic edge to his brother’s voice and Saeran blinks and tries to assess his surroundings. Same bed, same room, same dishevelled brother.

‘Your arm…,’ Saeyoung trails off and they both stare down. He’d been scratching at it again. His nails are too short to do any real damage, bitten down so much they’re mostly exposed flesh, and it’s mostly force of habit by this point, but any hint of self-harm on his part makes his brother wheeze in panic. Saeran’s face turns a shameful red under the neon lights.

‘Sorry. Sorry.’ And then. Softly, for a third time, ‘Sorry.’ That should cover a lot of things. _Sorry I accused you of trying to one up me in misery. Sorry I can’t think straight and have to negotiate how much I’m going to verbally beat you down this time around. Sorry we ended up like this._

‘I’m sorry too,’ Saeyoung says, and that’s always a loaded word on his side of the border they’ve drawn up between them with pillow, just tall enough to make Saeran feel safe in his little enclosure. ‘I just…there’s a difference between being a situation where doing bad things is the only viable options and whatever mom did or thought she was doing with us.’ Saeyoung looks so young now, gaunt and trembling like Saeran remembers. ‘I want you to know this. And I want you to know this from someone who understands. That’s all.’

His ears are burning bright red when he’s done and Saeran is hit in the chest with the full force of that realisation. Little details he’d ignored light up across his memory too, small jokes about disappearing, quick asides about horrible deaths. It had been easy to imagine Saeyoung as happy, to see himself slipping into his skin and living out a life of infinite freedom in his stead, but these days, Saeran thinks having a twin is a bit like seeing yourself broken twice. Same faulty wiring.

They always did match.

His twin’s hand is still resting on the edge of his territory, his skin looking a bit sickly in the distorted hospital light, and Saeran’s eyes fixate on it to anchor his thoughts on what matters now.

‘Saeyoung, I think she was very sick,’ he says a bit shakily, trying to keep the emotion in his voice at bay. ‘I - I know it doesn’t make her a good person in hindsight, but that’s what I’m worried about.’ Deep breaths. Saeran licks his lips anxiously to get some moisture back. ‘That I’m like that. To you. To _MC_. Or that I’ll end up like that. I try very hard not to, but…you’ve seen me. Some of those things I did, I wanted to do, and I thought that wanting to stop doing them should be enough, but…,’ he keeps going until he can hear the upwards tilt to his voice, the anxiety seeping through his tattered self-control. ‘Is it that wrong to feel sympathy for her?’

When he speaks again, Saeyoung’s voice is cautious.

‘Saeran, I can’t tell you what to do with this hurt. No one can. You’re the only one who knows how you should feel about it.’

All hospitals are the same, in the end, Saeran thinks. Quiet, empty rooms that make you want to spill yourself over, fill them up with all your wretched anxieties. In a very different room, someone had once told him once that healing was done in the dark, but he’s not sure how to feel about that anymore. In this room, bathed in the sickly green glow of the neons, Saeran reaches out across the pillows and grabs onto his brother’s hand.


End file.
